Portland or BUST

We are in the midst of our cross country trip from ABQ to Portland (or Vancouver if you want to get technical). We are at a truck stop right now outside of Boise, ID experiencing a little bit of traveling delay due to a fatal accident on the interstate. We are about 3 hours behind where we intended to be, but praise God we are safe and have food in our bellies. The trip has been great and the kids are fantastic travelers! I am the whiny one, but I am trying to be on my best behavior...Jordan helps as he is a cross country machine. We hope to be at our new house by tomorrow afternoon...we'll see! Thanks to all who are praying for us...I can literally feel the hand of God on us every mile of this journey...He is so good.

Food is here!!!! Bye for now!

Mom...the bride

I can't believe that this week is actually here. All of the talking and preparing and planning and here it is! My mom got married this weekend and both of my brothers, my grandma and uncle were here to celebrate. It was fun and now this means that we have to pack :(

This will be an ode to family of sorts -



My mom, Kim and the boys hanging out at our house.



With my mom and grandma...I'm pretty happy with my genetics



I love my brothers!



He's "special", what can I say?



Noelle loves smelling ALL flowers.



Another photo by Austen the photographer.



4 generations...awwwwwwww



The ONLY pic I got of all 3 kids...of course.



I love the McNutts.



Love from Uncle Matt!



The kids weren't really interested in a family pic.



I love love love love him.

So now the countdown begins...6 days until we go from here to there, dry to wet, ABQ to PDX. We have a lot of packing to do and goodbyes to give out. We are excited and anxious at the same time. I really hate saying goodbye to anyone. It's bittersweet, but there are great adventures that await us in the next time zone.

Landon...the ring bearer.

This picture was too sweet to leave out. Here are the boys at the dinosaur museum. They loved it for obvious reasons...

JY with A...he was quite the little server that night!

Me and the ring bearer...He was very professional with his ring bearing duties.

And we genuinely had a good ole time together...he's really that funny.

Landon liked the toast. He toasted about 15 times.

This is just one of the videos of Landon's dance moves at the reception...

He clearly inherited his rhythm from his dad.

I think it's really happening.

Maybe this post is a little premature...but I think it's actually happening. We really are moving. I guess I just keep waiting for something to self-destruct. We started talking and praying about this move last September. I typically don't like to make long, drawn out calculated motion. I think something sounds awesome, and then do it. But God hasn't really allowed any othat sporadic business...

We sold our house...it fell through...sold it again

Moving to Portland...moving to Dallas...moving to Portland

Got on-campus cheap housing...house got condemned...just secured a home (without "major structural damage")

None of these things were really devastating to us...just little bumps in the road. The only thing I really know about the path that God has for us is the final destination...I won't really complain about detours or road quality.

All that to say...we have a place to live, have a place to work, have a place to learn and now we are ready to go! Now I just need to figure out how to sneak my mom on the rental truck without her realizing it.

We do have a lot of fun things happening in the next 6 weeks though to keep me occupied. Landon is in a wedding next weekend. There WILL be hilarious pictures of that. Jordan is officiating 2 weddings...one being my mom's! My family will be meeting my grandma for the first time as she is flying in for my mom's wedding.

I am not quite ready for the trauma of saying goodbye to family, friends and co-workers yet, so I will continue living in denial of that reality until the last possible moment!

No more front yards landscaped with rocks?! What will we do with all of this grass?

Friends and Family

I have a lot of recent pics of the kids with their little friends and they are too cute! I can't believe that in 6 weeks we will be leaving this place. So this is just a little recap on the haps.

I should really post the pic of them laying side by side at ages 1 month and 4 months so you can all appreciate this the way I do....not a whole lot warms my heart more than watching these two together. This is Austen with his BFF Gracyn.

This is something we like to call "tripod". It occurs when you are least expecting it...it's been happnening for the last 6 months.

My dad drove his Harley from Tyler on his birthday to come see us! He is hardcore.

Noelle likes swinging at the park...you can even push her higher, she will only smile.

I told him "Landon you are too big for the baby swing". He was persistant. And he does not like to be pushed higher.

This is Jacob and Pierce...Noelle's boyfriends. I said "It's picture time babes!". Clearly someone has had some photo-op training.

Summertime!

Our last month has kept us pretty occupied doing mostly...nothing. We've been in our rental house for almost a month now and it's starting to feel more comfortable. Jordan and I have been talking about how weird it feels to know you will only live somewhere for 3 months...we can't really "get settled" or really unpacked for that matter. I think we are trying to find the balance between our excitement of what's to come and still be productive and meaningful while we are here. Tonight we had dinner with my mom and swam at the pool...it was great. Here are some random pics of the last few weeks! Noelle kind of dominates, but what's new.

For the record, Noelle is NOT a fan of the pool.

I hear that in addition to adding 10 pounds, the camera also can make your face looked jacked up while catching flying children in a pool...weird coincidence.

This is the closest Noelle would come to the pool...no kisses for you Dad.

The girl looks good in orange!

Grandaddy was in town took us out to eat! It was good times!

A brotherly pedicure. Just take my word for it...this did NOT end well.

Me and "the officiant".

I seriously can't stop myself.

Relocation Schizophrenia

I have really delayed writing a blog on what's been happening with us purely because whenever I say we have a made a decision about something...then the opposite seems to happen. It's like we have bad blog-ma or something. Either way, I feel compelled to share so I must.


Well, we were obviously pretty bummed about our previous house deal bust, however about a couple of weeks later we received a second offer on the house. The same week that we were mulling over this offer, the college in Portland (Multnomah Bible College) called and told us that we have been approved for on campus family housing....a 4 bedroom almost 1500 square foot house! The rent for the house is about half what we are paying in mortgage! So....after about a week, we did decide to accept the house offer and are now planning on moving to Portland at the beginning of September. As excited as I was about Dallas, I think I would have been devastated to hear that we were approved for on-campus housing AFTER having relocated...so these crazy turn of events really happened at exactly the right time and we are truly thankful for it. I wish I could articulate into words how Jordan and I feel about this move for our family, but I really can't. Just know that as hard as it will be to leave our friends and family here, we are equally excited to see just what God has planned for us in Portland.


In other equally exciting news...Austen "graduated" from preschool. We are still undecided whether or not to start him in kindergarten this year. His birthday is September 1st which is THE cutoff day...so we'll see. Landon is still Landon, and Noelle is walking now...so cute! My mom is "offically" engaged and will be getting married in August or September. I am very happy for her!!!




She graduated from the walker recently, but is still just as excited about it!




Watermelon is clearly the summer fruit of choice!

Sometimes they really do love each other!

And of course....the RING. Good one mom.